GOELRO () was the first of Soviet Russia's plans for national economic recovery and development. It became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans drafted by Gosplan. GOELRO is the transliteration of the Russian abbreviation for "State Commission for Electrification of Russia" (). Stamp of USSR 1666

The Commission and Plan were initiated and supervised by

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

. Lenin's belief in the central importance of

electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. In the context of history of technology and economic development, electrification refe ...

to the achievement of

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

is represented by his statement:

Foundation

The commission was established by the Presidium of the VSNKh on February 21, 1920, in accordance with February 3, 1920, VTsIK resolution on the electrification plan development. The director of the commission was Gleb Krzhizhanovsky. About 200 scientists and engineers participated, including Genrikh Graftio, Ivan Alexandrov, Mikhail Shatelen and others. By the end of 1920 the Commission devised the "

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

Electrification Plan" (), that was approved subsequently by the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets on December 22, 1920,On GOELRO Plan – at Kuzbassenergo
and accepted by the Sovnarkom (Soviet government) on December 21, 1921. The Plan represented a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. Lenin's stated goal for it was "...the organization of industry on the basis of modern, advanced technology, on electrification which will provide a link between town and country, will put an end to the division between town and country, will make it possible to raise the level of culture in the countryside and to overcome, even in the most remote corners of land, backwardness, ignorance, poverty, disease, and barbarism."

Foreign authors about the plan

In 1920, British writer Herbert George Wells visited Soviet Russia and met with Vladimir Lenin. Wells believed that it was impossible to realise the Russian revolutionary’s plan, as he wrote in his book Russia in the Shadows:

Implementation

The GOELRO Plan was implemented during a 10- to 15-year period. According to the Plan, the territory of the

was divided into eight regions, with distinct development strategies due to the specific features of each region: Southern Region, Central Industrial region, Northern Region, Ural Region,

Volga The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...

Region, Turkestan Region,

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

Region and Western

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

Region. The Plan included the construction of a network of 30 regional

power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

s, including ten large hydroelectric power plants, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises. It was intended to increase the total national power output per year to 8.8 billion kWh, as compared to 1.9 billion kWh in

Imperial Russia Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * ...

in 1913. Soviet propaganda declared the plan was basically fulfilled by 1931. While only three out of ten hydroelectric stations were built by 1930: the Volkhov, the

Svir The Svir (; ; Karelian language, Karelian and Finnish language, Finnish: ) is a river in Podporozhsky District, Podporozhsky, Lodeynopolsky District, Lodeynopolsky, and Volkhovsky District, Volkhovsky districts in the north-east of Leningrad O ...

, and the Dnieper Hydroelectric Stations; the goal of 8.8 billion kWh was reached in 1931, and national power output continued to increase significantly. It reached 13.5 billion kWh by the end of the first five-year plan in 1932, 36 billion kWh by 1937, and 48 billion kWh by 1940. Leon Trotsky as president of the

commission and the Opposition bloc also put forward an electrification plan which involved the construction of the

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

Dnieprostroi dam. Ivan Alexandrov later directed the Regionalisation Commission of Gosplan which divided the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

into thirteen

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an and eight

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

tic economic regions, using rational economic planning rather than "the vestiges of lost sovereign rights". The term "Ilyich's lamp" (лампочка Ильича) for an electric bulb, a reference to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, is a reminder of the Plan period. File:GOELRO plan title page 1920.jpg, The GOELRO plan title page, 1920 File:RIAN_archive_436925_Poster_-742_%22Rosta_Windows%22_dedicated_to_Russia%27s_electrification_by_Vladimir_Mayakovsky.jpg, Poster #742 "Rosta Windows" dedicated to Russia's electrification by Vladimir Mayakovsky File:RIAN archive 528016 Map depicting Russia's electrification.jpg, A map depicting Russia's electrification (1973) File:RIAN_archive_763450_%22GOELRO_Plan%22_poster.jpg, "GOELRO Plan" poster by Alexander Lemeshchenko (1967) File:Goerlo 03.jpg, The electrification of the Southern District according to the GOELRO plan

Legacy

In 1963,

Che Guevara Ernesto "Che" Guevara (14th May 1928 – 9 October 1967) was an Argentines, Argentine Communist revolution, Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and Military theory, military theorist. A majo ...

cited the GOELRO plan as a model for the development of revolutionary Cuba. Guevara's view was that electrification provided a crucial basis for advancing to a higher stage of development, although Guevara stated that in hindsight Lenin had overemphasized the importance of electrification in and of itself.

References

External links

85th anniversary of GOELRO plan
at the website of

RAO UES OAO RAO UES (OAO Unified Energy System of Russia; or ) was an electric power holding company in Russia. It controlled about 70% of Russia's installed electric capacity, 96% of its high-voltage grid and over 70% of its transmission lines. In add ...

Map of the electrification
from the

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

{{authority control Documents of the Soviet Union Economic history of the Soviet Union Economic history of Russia 1920 establishments in Russia 1920s in economic history 1920 documents